With the advent of computers, there have been many systems developed to model the physical world including the simulation of automatic assembly operations, control strategies for robotics systems, vehicular crash simulations, modeling of molecular interactions, behavior of granular flow, etc. The common thread in most systems is the need for realistic and efficient modeling of the contact between objects.
In the medical field, there is an urgent need for an automatic modeling method to model the motion of anatomical joints. Although motion modeling for joints is known (see Goyal et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,575 at column 1, lines 56-57 as well as: Kramer et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,238; Kunii et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,428; Katz let al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,642; and, Kunii et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,577) all patents require parameters such as speed, acceleration and mass defined.
The first objective of the present invention is to provide an algorithm for the motion modeling of rigid bodies using collision detection.
The second objective of this invention is to provide a physically based method for modeling a collision input between two three-dimensional objects.
The third objective of this invention is to provide a range of motion method wherein it is divided into a series of steps that are recorded and subsequently used for simulation of the range.
The fourth objective of this invention is to provide a series of original incremental algorithms to provide the base of a modeling algorithm.
In an essential embodiment of the invention which relates to a physically based method on the use of collision detection to achieve stable position and orientation of the joint components to a given attitude there is provided a method of modeling a collision input between two three-dimensional objects comprising the steps of: pushing at least one three-dimensional object to another three-dimensional object; determining an x, y and z direction of the at least one pushed three-dimensional object; identify x, y and z input points of the at least one pushed three-dimensional object and the another three-dimensional object; and, modeling the pushing direction and input collision without using laws of dynamics such as but not limited to speed, acceleration, object mass and initial object positions.